Oral Answers to Questions

Linda Riordan Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We are going to bring forward our proposals. It is because we acknowledge the importance of this area that we want to get it right. We are going to consult and we want people to recognise their priorities and have the opportunity to decide with us what they think those are. It is our intention—this can be stated absolutely, because it is the purpose of universal credit—to ensure that people will always be better off in work than out of work.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What estimate he has made of the number of people in Halifax who will be affected by planned changes to disability living allowance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

After disability living allowance reform, we will be spending broadly the same in 2015-16 as we spent in 2009-10. At present, some 5,480 people in the Halifax parliamentary constituency are in receipt of DLA. That is after a 30% increase in the number receiving DLA nationwide in the last eight years. We will work with disabled people and the organisations that represent them on the design and delivery of the personal independence payment. Until this work is more advanced, I am unable to predict precisely whether individuals will see a change in their entitlement.

[Mrs Riordan]

I recently visited Mayfield house, a residential home in Halifax, to meet people who need and rely on DLA. The Government say that they are delaying their cuts to this benefit, but I hope they are not giving false hope to many of my constituents. Will they just admit that they have made a mistake and simply keep this benefit?

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving me the opportunity to clarify the situation yet again, even though the Prime Minister did so last week in Prime Minister’s questions. The Government are not removing DLA mobility from care home residents from 2012. We made it clear that we have listened to concerns across the House and from disabled people. We will consider care home residents at the same time as all other recipients—both current and future claimants—as we develop the personal independence payment. What we have uncovered is an unacceptable way in which mobility is often dealt with in care homes, and we will look at that further.